


By Blood

by Rhaeluna



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Body Horror, Character Death, F/F, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Fear, Forests, High School, Hiking, Horror, Lesbian Character, Magic, Monsters, Paranoia, Pining, Psychological Trauma, Statement, Trans Character, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 16:20:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14139810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhaeluna/pseuds/Rhaeluna
Summary: Statement of Alexa Hunt regarding the death of her friend, Jenna Davids, and her relationship with faeries. Original statement taken on December 24th, 2014.





	By Blood

Statement begins.

I'd always believed in faeries. I remember pretending to be Tinkerbell and running through the woods during the hot summers of my childhood. Now when I say faeries, I really mean the Disney sort. Tiny attractive white women with blonde hair flitting about on butterfly wings. As a little trans girl who hadn't come out to herself yet it was an easy escape to indulge. When I pretended to be a princess the kids on my block would harass me and call me a freak but faerie warriors had just enough of that epic Lord of the Rings or Dungeons & Dragons feel that they gave me a slight benefit of the doubt. Enough at least that I could play in the grass outside my home with enough ambiguity not to direct their constant ire. Faeries were my escape. I loved them; they made me feel feminine and powerful, you know? I dreamed of them until my last year of high school.

What happened to Jenna destroyed those flights of fancy. I can't stand the thought of them now and they keep me awake at night. Faeries. My neice is pissed with me because I won't play pretend anymore and I was the only one she'd share that with. She can't understand and I don't blame her for hating me.

It was a couple days before I started college. I'd packed up and all my paperwork was in order. I was ready to leave, but since I'd done everything to prepare already I became a fidgeting ball of anxiety before I was even scheduled to leave and had yet to find any source of relief. I'd finished early enough for the anxiety and boredom to blossom into full blown panic.

Going backpacking was Jenna's idea. We'd been going on hiking trips all through high school after meeting in a club our freshman year. She was the one who approached me and the one who picked out locations each month since our adventures began. It was our thing. We never shared it with other people. One last trip together before we went to opposite coasts for college such a perfect idea I'm surprised I didn't think of it myself. It certainly didn't help that I'd had a huge crush on her since sophomore year and was looking for an opportunity to confess before separating.

We left Seattle for the Olympic Peninsula on Friday. Jenna picked a trail near the center of the range and we'd have to first follow another, older trail first before we could reach it. It was hidden, which we liked. We sang out our hearts to Lady Gaga and I barely kept my eyes off her as we drove towards those looming grey-green hills. The first few days were great. We arrived at the trail head after parking at the edge of the forest and a leisurely trek to the proper path. The trees grew over the skyline like lush, mossy hands reaching for God. The August heat was overwhelming but it barely registered once we hit our stride. It was nothing new, you know? We'd done this a hundred times. The wooded trail wound past clear rivers and past dark, crystalline lakes. We climbed straight up, the switchbacks, hills, and downed trees slowing us to a crawl in places. I hardly cared  
though.

I was in the woods, the dirt and air so fresh and kind. I'd gotten relief in those glades and fields of wild flowers from the weight of the world breaking my spine since I was 14. I looked to Jenna and felt her smile lighten my heart over and over, my vulnerable gay little center pounding from heat, sweat, and the grit in my skin. I felt the rocks under my shoes, heard the clatter our backpacks ring in unison, and inhaled Jenna's scent as it wafted in the air.

It happened on the fourth night of our eight day trip. I'd been doing my usual routine of passive sort-of-flirting with Jenna that was just vague enough for me to deny everything if she caught on. We were making our way to a great basin holed out from an ancient volcano. The crater was massive and filled with ice and jagged rock, snow sitting near the ridges even amid the summer heat. Little ponds sparkled like sheets of quartz lain between the patches of firs. I was planning to go swimming and fantasizing about very subtly giving Jenna a strip tease to taunt her. Looking back, she probably knew all along I was infatuated with her; I wasn't nearly as clever as I thought myself to be. We were a ways out from the basin still and looking to make camp down the cliff from the crater itself. There weren't any campsites in the basin for safety reasons, at least according to the Park service. Numerous warnings adorned their website discouraging hikers from making the trip due to shifting glacial melt and rough, nearly vertical climbs.

We'd ignored them. We were teenage women of the woods, we had enough experience and near death encounters between us to fill a sea. Stupid.

As we meandered through the warm evening light towards our campsite Jenna and I made our usual jokes. Pokemon, our classmates, the Sailor Moon fan fiction we wanted to write but never got to. I'd been throwing around some stupid, undoubtedly gay idea when Jenna went silent. She stopped in her tracks and my voice trailed off in confusion. In the quiet the sounds of birds and winds took over the forest and surrounded us completely. Jenna reached down and took my hand. My heart nearly exploded and I began to speak when my eyes found where she was looking.

Dancing in the grassy clearing beyond the grove to our left were small, flitting shapes of light. They couldn't have been fireflies, they were too big, the Pacific Northwest too cold for them. Jenna was transfixed, her pupils widened and unmoving. I found myself staring at them too, my brain still trying to put together what I was seeing. I wasn't afraid, not yet. The lights moved in formation and seemed to be drawing patterns in the air like bees dancing to communicate. The space around them was fuzzy somehow, like visual radio static. Looking at them I felt a tug in my chest, like they were pulling me closer by grabbing onto something inside me. The fear kicked in but was quickly replaced a strange serenity, one I couldn't, and still can't explain. It was Jenna that snapped me out of it, or at least, it was her hand gripping gradually tighter around mine.

I blinked and it was like the lights had never been there at all. They were gone, the evening light shrinking behind the mountain casting a clear glow through the space they used to inhabit. I shook my head and tugged Jenna's hand. When it took a moment for her to respond, I should have known something was wrong. She looked at me like I'd dropped her into the waters of the Pacific, cold and clammy and sudden. It was what she said next that made the fear roar in my heart. When I asked what she thought of the glowing shapes she told me she didn't see anything. She said she'd just looked left and suddenly there I was, acting all anxious and giving her the jitters.

She'd lost time, or I was hallucinating, or... there was no good answer to the situation, you know? She could have been lying, one or both of us could have been crazy. There was no way to know, and I didn't want to freak her out by telling her unless I could back it up. So I started to walk. I didn't let go of her hand and soon enough we were gabbing away again, joking about things that don't matter anymore. 

We stayed like that, strolling together with our fingers entwined, until we breached the crest of the hill and arrived at our campsite. As I tried and failed to sleep that night I attempted to stay focused on our planned adventure to the basin next morning. At that point I'd decided the whole thing was a trick of the light, something extraordinary made from nothing by my active imagination. Jenna's reaction was simple: she'd zoned out and wasn't paying attention. I told myself this over and over, tried to convince the nagging feeling eating at my chest that it was the truth. It was light reflecting off a cloud of dust. And yet, agitation dug at me like needles sinking into my bones. It didn't help that Jenna and I were sharing such a small tent together. She was so close I could reach out and kiss her face, though I never would. An hour into my paranoia induced panic Jenna grunted in her sleep. I jumped. She didn't wake, and instead rolled over in her sleeping bag to face me and wrapped her arms around my middle, pulling my back flush against her chest.

She snuggled into me and I froze. It was there, cradled in Jenna's arms with her hot breath against my neck and my blood hammering in my skull, that I managed to float into something resembling sleep.

I woke again in the early dawn when a chilling breeze crept up my back. Jenna was gone. I lurched up, saw the flapping, open door of the tent, and panicked. My head thrummed as the terror took me and isolation filled my insides. The day's events rushed over me like water and I knew I had a choice to make. I could stay in the tent, shivering, alone, and alive, or I could ascend the cliff to the basin where I knew I would find Jenna.

I chose the latter and tugged on my boots as I stumbled out into the night. My gut clenched and I felt nausea roll in my stomach as I looked up through the pitch darkness to the cliff of the basin and saw a carnival of lights dancing just beyond. Armed with my flashlight, rope, and pocket knife I gunned for the path leading up the steep incline. As I gained elevation I began to see the sky lighting behind the shining colors in the basin. Dawn was coming. The path itself was hidden and even harder to travel safely in the black but I found my way despite the frenzy overtaking me and only collected minimal cuts and bruises. I climbed and climbed, my hands and feet tripping over each other, the twinkling color above radiating out and mixing like a potion with the stars.

I really don't know what I expected to see, and once or twice in my ascent I knew with certainty I was hallucinating. Jenna had just gotten up to pee and I was making of fool of myself chasing lights that had completely natural, scientific explanations. Even if Jenna wasn't there, though, I had to see them again. They drew me in, the same way they drew Jenna, I only realized later. They got us both, I just happened to live to talk about it. The pull in my rib cage was there again, the pressure gripping my innards and tugging me upwards and towards the colored sky.

I saw her as soon as I cleared the ridge. 50 feet away, standing barefoot in an ankle deep pool of glacial water. Huge glowing stones surrounded her on all sides like great, ancient shields channeling the Earth's magic. Their light arced out like fire burning in every hue imaginable. At their center was Jenna and around her circled the dancing shapes of light. I sprinted.

I dug my heel into the dirt and swallowed all my fear, throwing myself forward, screaming Jenna's name while the summer air beat my face. I rushed like a plummeting stone through space, knife in my hand. I was crying. As I closed the gap between us and stepped into the vast shallow pool the shapes became clearer. They looked like people, small people, with long, thin proportions. They were all colors, just like their light. Great wings spread out from their backs and flapped loosely in the wind. There were...five? Six? To this day I still don't know whether Jenna even saw them, or if she was even conscious. For all the reaction I got to my screaming she might as well have been sleepwalking. Their shapes were blurry, like I mentioned earlier, sort of halfway between being there and not being there.

I was so close. I don't know whether you've read the report I gave the police but I can't stress enough how close I got to saving her. Maybe if I had been a little faster, been a little more honest. I don't know. I was feet from them, these small, foot and a half tall nothumans, so close to Jenna I caught her scent for the last time. I shot my hand up to grab her arm and readied my knife to attack the creatures when they looked at me. All of them. They stopped dancing and stared into my eyes and I swear I could see the sky itself looking back into me. I felt my heart flood with a vastness so massive and incomprehensible I stopped dead mid step. Tears streaked down my cheeks. My legs locked up and wouldn't move.

Something held me, like the pressure in my chest, bolting me to the ground so I couldn't move. The fear was absolute, my mind white. I don't know how long I stood there, motionless, but soon enough the monsters smiled at me, bared their jagged teeth, familiarity sparkling behind their wide, black eyes. Then they turned back to Jenna. The biggest of them lifted her hand to its mouth and bit off two of her fingers. She screamed, high and shrill; she screamed for so long and I can still hear her.

The monsters descended on Jenna like vultures devouring a corpse. They tore chunks from her cheeks, her legs, her arms. A little one flew down and pulled open her belly before three of them climbed in and began to eat her insides. She dropped to the ground like lead, her voice raw, blood gushing out in thick pulses, mixing with the spring water, and trickling outwards.

They ate her. Like a family feasting together they laughed and chattered in a flowery, unknown language as they chewed on pieces of her flesh. It took her a very, very long time to die. They kept me there the whole time, frozen. I watched it all. My eyes stained red, my nose running, my chest wracked with sobs, my insides on fire. I have never wanted to die more than I did in that moment.

When my friend was little more than a skeleton the biggest of the things hopped off her and flew towards me. I remember thinking it was my turn. Now they would kill me, and I would be free of this hell. Good. I would see Jenna again. Please, God, let me see Jenna again.

The monster hovered there in front of my face. She looked pensive for a few moments, then her face lit up. She smiled, and gestured for another one of them. Together, they presented me with Jenna's eyes, dangling from threads of muscle, and gestured towards my mouth. They wanted me to eat them. I knew it, I still know it, those fucking things wanted me to eat Jenna's eyes. The worst part was...they looked almost friendly. Like they had no idea what they just did and wanted to help me.

I screamed then, my mouth breaking out of the frozen stance. My body still numb I shrieked, the creatures darting back in surprise, the colors in the air distorting from their rainbow hues to thick blues and purples. I screamed and screamed and the things went wild as the air itself seemed to reverberate with heavy, shadowy color. I roared my throat raw and resolved myself to never stop. I wanted to die so, so badly. Maybe if I bothered them enough they'd kill me? They didn't even have to release me from that spot, they just had to make me die. The monsters were talking again, clearly panicked. They all fluttered into the air around me. I thought it was time, this would be my end, they would start soon. Instead, they began to sing. They danced around me like they'd danced before, their voices unlike anything I'd ever heard. It was beautiful, a song that captured the slow crawl of mountains and seas. The color in the air mixed like paint and wrapped me in heat, the creatures blurring with the reds and yellows, the greens and violets, the stars blinked out above me one by one and my skin warmed where they laid their hands on it. My vision went first. Then my smell, then my touch, and when my hearing was lost I faded into ultimate blackness.

When I awoke I was lying in the dirt next to my car. It was midday and the birds were calling to each other across the canopy. I felt around me and gripped my keys. When I sat up I saw they were covered in dry blood. In a state of hysterics I drove myself out of the park. As soon as I had cell service I called the police and then my parents before sinking into the driver's seat with my hazards on and sobbed into the steering wheel. They found me there, deep in shock, my heart rate far too low. I clenched the keys in my hand like they were the only things keeping me alive, my thumb caressing the little anime charm Jenna brought me back from Japan. I left in an ambulance and did my best to tell the cops what had happened before I went. I don't know how much they even understood.

They found her after I'd been in the hospital for just a few hours. Her mangled corpse was strewn across our campsite and broken in pieces like someone pushed it off the cliff above. Her death was labeled an animal attack and any mention of lights or faeries was quickly attributed to the delusions of a girl in shock. They told me I was traumatized, they told me it was a dream, they told me I didn't know what I was talking about. By the time I saw Jenna's parents I'd lost all the fight in me. I told them the bear came out of nowhere, we hadn't been careful enough, and I apologized more times than I could count.

They were just happy I came back at all. That's when the guilt really hit me, and it hasn't left after months. I lied to everyone. I was a traumatized girl who didn't see anything strange, just something very sad.

And with all the benefit of hindsight, maybe it was my head playing tricks on me. But I'm inclined to think it wasn't. I never told anyone, definitely not my parents, but when I woke up next to the car I was holding my keys in my left hand and a small, glowing stone in my right. It has markings on it I can't read, but more worryingly, it smells like my mother. Still does. She can't ever know, especially not if it means what I think it means, but I'm leaving it here for you all to look at. You are the only people who can help me and I'm begging you, please. Do something. I don't know what, but I have to know what really happened.

I still believe in faeries, but I don't dream about meeting them anymore.

Statement ends.

**Author's Note:**

> This statement is both clear and yet frustrating. The police report verifies that  
> Jenna Davids did indeed die on August 28th, 2014 from what was labeled an animal attack.  
> An autopsy was deemed unnecessary given how little of her was even left, and the DNA left behind by the attacker doesn't seem to match anything on file. Though, it may have also been too muddled to tell.
> 
> This hasn't stopped the cryptid community from latching onto the case, however, and they've since raised quite a muck about the "first known person killed by Bigfoot." Alexa and Jenna's things were recovered at the site of Jenna's corpse, though nothing unusual was found to suggest foul play. On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything supernatural about the case aside from Alexa's testimony. However, there is the case of the stone. Martin tells me the markings are old Icelandic, and when translated, say something akin to the English word "waiting." We were unable to contact Ms. Hunt for a follow up statement as she went missing several months after this statement was given. We reached out to her parents, who haven't heard from her since. They told us she "simply disappeared," and took none of her possessions when she left, save the car she left in and keys to run it.
> 
> End Recording.


End file.
